PAST EVENT: This was part of the EAF22 programme.

In the Eddy of the Stream drew attention to the breakdown of ecosystems through the removal of plants and the ensuing long-term harm to people, communities, and other species. The exhibition brought together the work of Cooking Sections and Sakiya, who create their own eddies: sheltered areas where water flows back upstream against the current. The two collectives’ work stimulated debate and offered tools for addressing historical damage and the resulting ecological crisis.

Through the lens of plants and the politics embedded in their growth, containment and conservation, the exhibition stemmed from the history of land struggles in Scotland and Palestine. ‘A fish from the river, a staff from the forest, a deer from the mountain’ (from Gaelic: breac à linne, slat à coille ‘s fiadh à fìreach) has long captured the fight against the enclosure of common land, and yet the thinking behind this saying seems more critical than ever. The different projects undertaken by the artists forged new alliances between humans and other species across changing territories.

The installations, performances and materials challenged how botany has been used as a mechanism of control and how it might identify new horizons. From the banning of foraging practices to rewilding and waste-landing debates, this exhibition put forward new ways of understanding and repositioning ourselves.